Post by feather on Sept 9, 2018 22:36:33 GMT
We were canning, two roasters and the electric went out at 4 am two days ago.
I can now tell you how we fixed it but not why it broke.
No one was divorced due to the problem but almost.
I insisted on having the whole house shut down electric, and DH wanted to try other things.
I told him I refused to have to do CPR and call an ambulance.
Mediator DS told either me or DH to take a walk or a drive.
It was ridiculous.
So since we tested every breaker (except the main and the dual one's), and we checked the gfic (?) breakers, nothing helped. DS checked it, I double checked it and then DH checked it for himself. The problem is we couldn't figure out which breaker was the right breaker even though everything is labeled, so we'd never know if we had the correct breaker off to do any work.
So I used this website to troubleshoot.
Once DS and I agreed to use the main breaker and turn it all off, we started to take a look at the non-working outlets to see if we could find burnt wires. Then DH came along and we started working as a team, finally.
The most suspect outlet was the most used one with the toaster and roaster on it, the second most suspect outlet was the coffee maker and second roaster on it. Then one to the left of the stove, one for the freezer and another outlet in the dining room.
We couldn't find any burnt wires or loose wires.
After we took the plates and outlets out of 5 outlets, we were ready to turn in our fake electricians badges and we started putting the outlets all back in the walls and cover them. I was dreading calling an electrician and spending more money. We were all frustrated.
I worked on the most suspect outlet, and noticed that when I was trying to put it back in the wall, the ground part of the bottom plug on the outlet was broke, slightly cracked, possibly black on the inside from burning out, maybe. 
So Dh replaced the wires into a new outlet for the most suspect outlet and we put covers on everything. Tested it and the circuit works! YAY and no one was killed due to electricity or domestic violence.
So the outlet broke. I don't know why this worked but I'm happy it is fixed. Fixing things around here is so difficult. I felt like crying when we were fixing things but I hear that is an electrical hazard.